You can sell anything to Americans as long as it has guns.

Ramonskito

I think whatever sort of backlash the game Kane & Lynch got in a way tied in into the games' sales.

I mean I know any publicity is good publicity but the whole 'net exploding because a tenured editor got fired because of said game definitely isn't good.

I played Kane & Lynch. While the game itself has its moments, most of it was average. The cover system wasn't good. The aiming reticule was confusing,level design problems,etc.
The overall story and premise was nice though.

I'm certain a couple of people didn't buy this game for pure spite alone. Carry over that to them telling their friends and so on. Which can't be good for a game's sales.

He is right though that in the end, in the eyes of the developers and publishers, it's all in the sales. Hey if Petz dogzz poopzzz cleanzz sells, they're going to keep making games like that. Even if it's critically panned, if the sales are there why not try to get the most out of it?

excaliburps

Translation: I didn't really care want those internet people thought about the game. We made a profit. I'm happy.

Blah8

I never did finish Freedom Fighters now that I think about it. It was an okay game, nothing special. The story was fairly interesting and commanding and recruiting various people was cool. The A.I was pretty week though and the controls needed improvement.

LittleBigPlaneteer

Sales pretty much tie into every other factor though, so he's pretty much right, although he has the wrong mentality. It's about making games people want to buy.

everybest

Didnt affect me from getting the game used. I don't really care if Gerstmann quit or got fired over the review but more importantly, where the hell is Freedom Fighters 2?

@Amazon_Chris: And its supposed to be "hurt gate," like if you run into a gate... it hurts.

Ra is on Three's Company!

Well if Freedom Fighters is still selling, then please do announce a sequel.

DigiMish

@Amazon_Chris:

It should probably be written as Gerstmanngate, or Gerstmann-gate. It's a reference to "Watergate".

LittleBigPlaneteer

@Amazon_Chris: "Gerstmann Gate" was when Jeff Gerstmann of Gamespot gave Kane & Lynch a 6.0, while K&L ads were all over the damned site. Gerstmann was later fired, and quite a few other Gamespot employees left as well. It was very very strongly suggsted that Gerstmann was fired for not liking a game they were advertising, although I'm not sure if people ever decided if it was Eidos who leaned on Gamespot to do it, or if Gamespot did it as a premature thing to try and prevent Eidos from pulling ads (Which they did do)

Lyrai

What does Gate Hurt mean? (@ the title)

Amazon_Chris

"In the end it's about sales and we have games like Freedom Fighters which is still selling."

Yeah um, it shouldn't be all about the sales...

LittleBigPlaneteer

Freedom Fighters still selling? GOOD. Now make a sequel to this awesome game already! That game rocked and it rocked good..

RagingAvatar

@NitrousO: Advertisements with guns and swearing.

Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.

I still dont understand how it sold as well as it did with those review scores.

NitrousO

I didn't dislike Kane & Lynch because of its graphics; I disliked it because it is crap. Crap gameplay, crap voice-acting, crap story, crap dialogue. CRAP.

Note that I played through the whole game, so I feel I am entitled to make this assessment.

duckmouth

@LittleBigPlaneteer:
No, it should not be written as Anything-gate, because tacking "gate" on a word to indicate a Major Scandal is a tired cliché. :|

Weaselfingers

What he meant to say was...

"I don't give a shit if the game is good or people like it as long as it sells well."

What the shit?

tshack

@ban_hammer: hey, dont be hating on dynasty warriors ...

i'm not surprised it sold well, they advertised the hell out of it on tv, print and online, maybe the game itself isn't good, i wouldn't know since i haven't played it, but eidos did their best to push the game which is more than can be said than other game companies/

meltyman

FREE JEFF GERSTMANN!!!

archibaldleech

I found a bunch of PC copies of Kane & Lynch at goodwill a couple weeks ago... There was about 8-10 copies, and about 2 copies of Tabula Rising. lol

SpearXXI

Freedom Fighters? Where could that possibly still be selling? Antarctica?

bangbangblah

One, if Cabela and Dynasty Warrior games sequels keep selling, then obviously anything can.

Two, not everyone hops onto a gaming site for reviews, some kids walk into Toys r us, look at the M-rated titles and picks the one with the most appealing box art. This is what Nintendo was talking about all along, casual apeal. Just walk into the game store of your choice and get one that looks good

ban_hammer

Also, usually, his reviews were the only ones I paid attention too. I usually agreed with most of them.

Amazon_Chris

Ahhh @ the Freedom Fighters reference. Loved that game. Wtf, acknowledging it and referencing it yet not reviving it. Sequel?

I think Kane and Lynch was definitely overshadowed by the controversy. I didn't play the game, only the demo, and it was good fun. No one was talking about the game itself, it was all about the controversy. Pretty surprised it broken even +. Then again, it just proves any publicity is good.

I wonder if it sold better because of that whole situation.

karasu is my homeboy

@Lyrai:

I see. I'd almost forgot about that. Kayne and Lynch was...Interesting. Wasn't worth above a 6 and if he was fired for rating it below a 9 with all the advertising around, then damn gamespot.

Amazon_Chris

Call me a sucker, a glutten for punishment, whatever. I somehow enjoyed....semi-enjoyed this game. The Gamespot thing didn't effect me buying the game but it did effect my opinion of gamespot. You see I am a sucker. A typical first generation, getting burned almost everytime early adopter. So I have all the consoles a big tv, a nice bose system and I buy alot of games. Admittitedly many of them are crap. I have quite a bit of disposable income so I buy just about every somewhat main game release, including all those horrible superhero games. Anyhow after that tangent, all I really wanted to say is that I no longer subscribe to gamespots higher level service and really no longer visit the site religiously. I used to really value their review opinions. Now I just no longer trust them. Sorry about the long comment folks!

eviltower01

LittleBigPlaneteer: from a business standpoint, what else should it be about? if its not sales.. then why make a sequel? beyond good and evil aside

xQue813x

Gerstmangate did hurt the IP. I don't think i would have cared ether way about the IP before that but after the incident you couldn't help but dislike them. It's one of those games i might have gotten in a bargain bin but i'll never get now.

clifftrapremover

Everyone was far too unkind about Kane & Lynch. Once one site started sticking the boot in, everyone joined and frankly there are far more deserving targets out there.

Kane & Lynch did a lot of things right. The art direction and the general colour palette was all really nice. The technology was solid. The character design was bloody fantastic, a real breath of fresh air. And the voice acting was excellent. Certainly the game had some problems too, most notably with the piss-poor level design. Frankly though, it is a nice game that is almost a great game, and it is definitely worth playing.

There are lots of truly shit games that deserve a kicking. Kane & Lynch isn't one of them. Play it, enjoy it for what it is, and think about how nearly great it is.

kiigan

K&L deserved a bad review - it was a bad game, 6 is probably about right...
... wow makes gamespot look bad
anyway the game get universally poor reviews so if IO broke even i'd say they were pretty lucky

so why the hell are they gonna make a film out of a crappy game?

scuba2steve

Although I see his reason for making such comments and saying what he sad, why now? Why wait until now to side step the entire Gerstmann issue? With regards to Jeff, he seems to be doing fine after the whole thing anyway. Giant Bomb is starting to really get going.

-oG-ShAdY

@Ramonskito:

You can sell anything to asians as long as it has swords

Siddi

Oh my god! He mentioned Fredom Fighters. Please make the sequel already!! We have enough Hitman games!

NoBullet

Kane & Lynch was retarded. Lowest common denominator, low brow garbage. The gaming equivalent of white trash. I've never seen a game try so hard to be gritty and badass that it just comes off as laughable before, so good fucking job IO Interactive.

SoulPunch

From my perspective, it can always be about the sales for people like him as long as they remain ethical about it. He shouldn't be slammed for sounding like he's doing his job. That "isn't" the problem.

okenny :)

@SoulPunch:

Do you play videogames? You must be playing all those really intelligent and high-brow games that never seem to be stocked by my local games retailers. There are far far worse games than K&L, which are far more deserving of your self-righteous rage. K&L got some stuff right, so give credit where it is due.

I do wonder how many of these mouthy critics even played the game.

kiigan

I played the demo, before I heard about the Gerstmann situation, and was unimpressed. I think wanton bad language is not enough to sell me on a title.

mphz

a lot of people playing online?

Where?

I actually liked this game, i was happy the new maps came out, but when i went to play them i think there were only 3 or 4 slots filled per game.....and nearly all of those were people being idiots

juscallmeweasel

@eviltower01:

Seriously? Bose? I don't care if you have a lot of disposable income, it really sounds like you buy the crap that isn't even worth taking up space or the effort of unpacking.

Do you buy Monster Cables too?

cowondinosaur

"The web has it's own voice"

It's spelled "its", Thomas. Corrected that for you.

Barts

Freedom Fighters is still selling? That's good news, right? Maybe we'll actually get a sequel; I thought that game was a lot of fun, if a bit too short.

Everard

i liked kane and lynch and loved freedom fighters, so i do hope we see a sequel to both. the shooting just seems to work really well to me in both games, they both have interesting characters and stories, etc etc.

pandafresh

SIGH!

artofwar420

"we have games like Freedom Fighters which is still selling" due to good reviews maybe? Gone down as a cult hit which people still tell others they "must play" - can't see Kane & Lynch going the same route. Get Bruce Willis for the movie of Freedom Fighters instead!

NunianVonFuch

i played this game and its just not very good i thought Gerstmann was generous when he gave it a 6. If i where him they would have come to my house and killed me because i would have given it like a 4.5-5.0. The graphics in general are bland the AI is dumb as hell and over all the shooting game play is generic and below average. The actual characters and acting suck to the point you don't even care about them. Its sad that its all about sales they don't care apparently about the actual game quality or who gets fired just because they cant make a good game.

blackfriend8

What he fails to realize that alotta crazy people like me outright refused to buy the game and talked anybody's ear off that they should stay away mainly because of the Gerstmann debacle.

I would've bought it even with a 6.0 score due to being a huge fan of playing co-op with my friends. Seeing that in my circle of friends a minimum 4 of us and maximum twelve bought games like Halo 3, Gears Of War, Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Army Of Two so we could play together co-op. But the disgust I have against these people made me go so far that I haven't even wanted to see the Hitman movie.

I know, I sounds like a raging Gerstmann fanboy, but it's more that hatred really festers in me. Especially when thing I am a fan of gets screwed with. My Jack Thompson and Uwe Boll voodooo dolls doesn't have room for anymore needles. :P

Anyhoo, my rambling's point is that this game had all the potential of being a ginormous and not just good seller. Now they are forever tainted.

TeflonBilly

We had some really harsh reviews and there was all this noise about this thing with GameSpot and it sort of went over my head whatever people were fighting about.

...yeah, sure. I'm sure he has no idea why people were raising hell.

If he's that clueless, why does he have the position he has?

KaneRobot

I didn't even rent it because of what happened to Jeff...and as such will not play any of it's sequels, should there be any.

Rodent

@scuba2steve:

Probably because the concept and characters were cool even if the gameplay sucked. Most people agreed that the game had a good story.

Of course, from what I've read, the movie is going to follow a different story so...

skullivan

My brother (who plays games but doesn't follow the industry like I do) bought Kane and Lynch the day it came out and later told me that he literally felt like he had been robbed.

He's not one to pay attention to what developer made a game but he said he'd never buy a game made by IO again. And I'm sure he has no clue about the review scandal.

I don't think Gerstmanngate hurt the game any more than the fact that it got shitty reviews across the board. The whole controversy happened because Jeff gave it a poor review. It wasn't like everyone else gave it great reviews and his stood out.

From what I understand, it still sold like 2 million copies, so it just goes to show that plenty of people either ignored the reviews or never looked at any to begin with.

skullivan

It probably did hurt the profits, which is why you'll something more subtle. Gameslop was hurt a lot more though then Kane and Lynch. Generally, when it comes to a person's primary genre- they aren't too picky about it. RPG players will play crap RPG's, FG lovers will play crap fighters, FPS loves will play crap FPS's, and there's a lot more FPS people out there.

Game was going to make a profit no matter what. It's the future sales that are hurt more then the present. A 6.0 review in today's standards is death though, since no one trusts good reviews, but everyone knows a bad review has to be really bad, it's like a grade from UNC or something.

arstal

Did Gerstmanngate Hurt Kane & Lynch? I'm sure it gave people even more reasons not to check it out, but really what hurt Kane & Lynch the most was the game itself. It's one thing to say it got some bad pr, but when people that play it won't recommend it to their friends and instead say how bad it is, that's just a bad game.

darknessgp

I think 6.0 was a very generous score for that game...
I would give somewhere in 4.0-5.0 for that uninspired piece of poo.

neojam

"Oh, it's always about the sales Thomas. Hence the problem."

I don't think he's talking about personal financial gain here. I think he's talking about people voting with their wallets for what they think is a good game.

sloner

@Siddi: I see what your trying to do there, ooooo you so clevah!

Except, Americans aren't a race. And games with swords don't really sell well among Asians. Pokemon does sell well here though, and Japanese like cooking games. So no swords there.

Continue with the half-baked parallel analogies though. They suit you well!

Ramonskito

@Ramonskito:

lol, I thought no one was gonna call him on that. I mean what you said was harsh..but when you look at the sales of Gears, Tom Clancy Games, Resistance etc. etc. etc. in the US it's pretty much true that in the US Guns=Sales.

Then genius shows up and generalizes a whole *race* rather than a *region*. Like saying Koreans will buy any game with starcraft or people in the UK will buy anything with a football is more accurate...but that was just smarmy and unintelligent.

majatt

I personally did not buy the game based on the Gerstmann incident. I may one day buy it...used. I rather like to hear that it's, "breaking even and still selling," as that translates to, "Yeah, it hasn't done that well..."

And also seriously, Kotaku, enough with the red eyes.

Zombie_Crunch

I think the problem is very simple.

Kane and Lynch is a game with two protagonists. It is intended to be played by two persons, taking on the virtual world together with lots of guns.

BUT it has NO ONLINE CO-OP CAPABILITY.

I was fucking baffled when I saw that. You can only deathmatch or play other various competitive games online?

I know that the stereotypical gamer has no friends, but you'd think that what with all the success of games like Rockband, developers would have finally realized "OK, gamers do have at least a FEW friends, or at least people they like to play games with, and since these guys are all introverts, it's a good idea to make these games co-op online, so that they can play WITH their friends instead of just AGAINST them."

Case in point, "Army of Two." A rather acceptable, passable, "meh" sort of game. But you and your friend could play together! Take on the world with guns and skull masks! It was fun and good and even if neither of you really liked the game, you got to play TOGETHER.

I think that if K&L had online co-op, it would have sold much better, and been less hated, even if only because a lot of people got tp play it with their best bud from high school who now lives 500 miles away. And we all like to do that. We can forgive shortcomings when we have a good time. Developers need to remember that!

incognit000

Gamers could tell that the game was going to be subpar from the demo and videos. The gamespot thing just gave more people an excuse to hate on the game even more.

Corncob

@cowondinosaur:

I do buy monster cables....and silk toilet paper.

eviltower01

@cowondinosaur:
Ouch! Don't hate.

eviltower01

"There's no such thing as bad PR," true in this case.  I would've never tried the demo had there not been such a fuss over it.  When I heard of the game it sounded boring as hell, and I had no interest to follow it.  Then the GameSpot controversary transpired, and I thought "how bad could it be?"  Bad, really bad.

tr67

Eidos redeemed themselves for publishing AGE OF CONAN. Can i get a woot?!

extratightpants

@eviltower01: Slik TP, That's funny stuff right there.

@Ramonskito: How well does Silk TP sell over there? Do you guys have swords imprinted on it? Personally, I prefer a sub-machineguns-of-the-world pattern.

Epaminondas

I actually want to buy the game, but the hole Gamespot incident rubbed me the wrong way, so I'm just waiting until it's in the bargain bin. Once it is under $20 I'll bite.

D00mM4r1n3

@DigiMish: Or at least a re-release. I can't find it anywhere!

CONFUSEDgam3r

Erm I should have said mix of Elf, Asian and Caucasian. Sorry for the typo, I didn't mean to imply that Asian and Caucasian are a weird mix. But Asian, Caucasian and ELF??? So weird...

Ramonskito

@Epaminondas: It might be selling pretty well 'over here' as in Asia generally but not particularly where I live.

Female elves that are a weird racial mix of Asian and Caucasian sell games very well over here indeed though, Blizzard *cough* Warcraft *cough* Blood.

Ramonskito

Take your copies of Kane and Lynch... get a bottle of Windex, shine 'em up real good... then take all those cases, turn them sum'bitches sideways, and stick each and every one of them up your candy ASSES, EIDOS!!!
Until you come clean with what REALLY went down (yeah, right.. like THAT'LL happen..) I will always consider you partially reaponsible for what happened to Jeff... and Gamespot as well... although it seels that Gamespot was hurting themselves already when the truth came out.

Enigma_20XX